Crawler
by odiedragon
Summary: My attempt at fleshing out the Earthborn origin for my fem!Shep.  The night before Shepard heads off to join the Alliance, she reflects on what she had both found and lost in her life.  Probably a one-shot, but no promises either way.


Ten years ago she had ran away.

She had taken nothing but some clothes shoved in a worn backpack, a knife stolen from behind the bar, and an old datapad. It had been a hot, dry day, not long after school had let out for the summer. Before that day she had another name, a name given to her by a mother whose face she no longer even remembered.

It was a miracle that she remembered much of her childhood at all. What was in the datapad was probably more than she could consciously recall.

That day however, she remembered it clearly. The sun had been hot, a pleasant warming rather than the scalding burns she would come to know the next morning. Her stomach had been full, and she had no knowledge of true hunger yet. The air was fresh and crisp, and smelled of freedom. Once she was far enough away from Aunt Leddy's establishment that she no longer recognized the street names, the whole world seemed laid out at her feet.

She was free.

The datapad still worked, but its solar cells had been punched out long ago. She had found an electrical plug that fit into its small jack in a pile of salvage, and it would still hold a charge if only for a little while. The screen lit up, a dark, burnt orange color. It would not be operational for much longer.

In a crude Note file, she had logged her impressions of those first few years on the streets. The gaps between entries were sporadic at best. Long periods of time had gone by where writing things down just seemed like a waste of time; time that could be better spent searching for food or going through back alleys looking for scrap metal that could be sold to the local salvage yard.

But that first day, when life was still a great adventure to be lived, she had the luxury of time.

_Day 1_

_This is the Henderson distrect. The sign said so. I'm not sure how I got here. I'm not goin back._

_Ant Leddy wont find me. I dont think she will look verry hard. Even after she runs out of cleen glassess. She thinks I think shes really my ant. Starlite told me the truth. But Starlite lied too. Starlite was goin to adopt me. She lied. She came to the bar last munth cryin then left. Ant Leddy said she was knocked up. But I saw she had no broozes. More lies._

_I know the truth now. I am not that girl no more. Now I am a new girl._

_My name is June._

She flicked the datapad into a nearby refuse bin as the screen blurred to incomprehensible. No. It was too hard. Tomorrow she would start a new life, again, leaving the old one behind for good. "Private Shepard," the man in the crisp form-fitting Alliance uniform had called her. To hear her street name come from his mouth sounded so _official_. Would that truly be her real name now? Would June become just as lost as that other girl, the one such a stranger to her now?

Probably.

The other crawlers had given her that name. Not the ones she had run with, even though they had inspired it. One night in a back alley as they fought over rights to a pile of scrap, one of their rivals had mockingly called her group "Shepherd and her 'sheeple'."

She shot him dead for those words. But her crew took a liking to the name anyway. Some took it as a joke, but some few in seriousness, which was not admitted to her until later. They claimed they felt lost without her guidance. As far as she could see, their team structure was just the way things worked out best. When they looked to her to make decisions, their raids were more organized, their bellies more consistently full, and more often than not they located the best places to salvage. June always figured it was because she was the first one of the group to lay hands on a gun. From there, it must have just become force of habit, for it continued even after more of her group acquired firearms. Shepherd became the name outsiders knew her as. After a small change in spelling so as not to have it look archaic, Shepard seemed the logical choice to fill in on the recruiter's form under Last Name.

Lately though, those children turned fledgling adults were growing into different people. Even the ones who were still around weren't the same. Life on the streets had changed them, and their choices had exemplified those changes.

Benny had been the first to leave. He ran with a bunch of sanders now, his eyes almost as red as the bottom of his nose. Rosie had caught the attention of a Conatix rep while panhandling, and had been sent off to some biotic commune somewhere. One of Picker's side-jobs had gone wrong, and he was doing hard time. Someone in San Francisco had found Grubber's name on the Lost Boy's extranet page, and the local shelter had arranged for him to move there. Dandelion had gotten desperate and started turning tricks; June had last seen her a month ago after she had moved into a SecEight modular tower, her stomach the size of a watermelon. That one had been particularly hard to face, because it reminded her of the piecemeal bits he knew of her mother's story. Would Dandy always be there for her child, or would she be shot down in the streets for reasons a child would never understand?

Only Brutus and Tinker were left, if you didn't count whatever floozy Brutus decided was his woman that week. Now June was leaving as well. Even worse, she knew that her leaving would truly be the end. It was likely that Brutus would either plant another crawler in one of his women, or run off and join one of the merc bands that were always recruiting in their district. Maybe both. Tinker... well, she wasn't quite sure what Tinker would do. That's why he needed this.

"So when do you get your swanky uniform, Private?"

She turned to greet the voice with a grin. "I presume right after they take the shirt off my back and toss it in the fiber-cycler."

Tinker sat down on the park bench beside her. "I'm still having a hard time believing it, ya know? Our Shepherd, an Alliance bootie. I mean, I know you'll kick ass and take names with the best of them, but you're going to have to take orders, you know. From other people."

She looked down at her feet and closed her eyes. "I _can_ do that, contrary to popular belief. The only reason I stepped up in the first place was because _some_one had to."

"Never mind that it's because you're a natural born leader. If you can survive boot camp without killing your superiors, I bet they promote you like _that_." He snapped his fingers for emphasis.

She laughed through her nose. "If there's one thing for sure in this life, it's that nothing's for sure."

They sat together in silence for some time, the almost-full moon quietly lighting the greenspace in front of them. Sometime in there, Tinker took her hand. She squeezed it lightly back, very reluctant to let go. They were not lovers, save that one night when they both had too much backalley hooch and woke up entangled in one another's startled arms, but she felt closer to Tinker than any other crawlers in their band.

"I need to ask one more thing of you, Tinker."

"Anything."

"Take care of Striker for me." She removed the aging gun from its holster and handed it over.

"What?" He stared at her, dumbfounded. "You're giving me your gun?"

"I am."

"But..."

"I know." She placed the butt of the gun in his palm and closed his hand around it.

He stared at it. "I never thought you'd part with it, not willingly."

"The Alliance will give me a new one, I'm sure. One that doesn't look like some twenty-first century reject," she quipped.

"Still..." Tinker continued, hesitantly. "You don't expect to come back, do you?"

"Should I?"

"Military service is not an automatic death sentence, y'know."

"Of course it isn't. Honestly, what I can't stand is the idea of her being melted down for scrap."

Tinker nodded, turning the weapon over in his hands for several moments. "I'll keep 'er safe for you. Maybe even install a few upgrades, for old times sake."

She squeezed his hand again. "Thank you, Tinker."

"Any time, June. Any time."

Not long after that she stood up. "Lost Boys said I could spend the night there and they'd spot me shuttle fare. For old times sake. That, and I promised them I'd show up unarmed."

Tinker hurried to his feet. "Then I should walk you there."

"There's no reason for yo-"

"Hello, Shepherd? Is that you? I know you're in a crazy place right now, but I'm not letting you walk these streets without any heat."

She sighed. "Fine, fine."

Within the rubbish bin, the datapad made an antiquated shutdown noise as they walked away.

* * *

A/N: CURSE YOU BIOWARE for making me want to write more fic. :D I don't forsee me doing a lot of ME stuff however, since the story is so much more structured. This was more of an attempt to flesh out my fem!Shep's background from the itty bitty paragraph you get about it.

Also, bonus points to those who know the real reason why Shep's name is June (and you know on your own, not from overhearing me wank about it in #swooping_is_bad chat)


End file.
